LOCAL

Rivals compete for gay votes in Council race
Candidates endorsed by Fenty, Gray score lower on gay issues

LOU CHIBBARO J
Friday, April 06, 2007

The two D.C. Council candidates backed by Mayor Adrian Fenty and Council Chair Vincent Gray received significantly lower ratings on gay issues than their closest rivals in the May 1 special election to fill vacant seats on the Council for Wards 4 and 7.

The ratings by the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance, the city’s oldest, non-partisan gay advocacy group, came at a time when Fenty and Gray have put their political clout on the line to hand pick their replacements. Fenty held the Ward 4 Council seat before taking office as mayor January 2. Gray held the Ward 7 seat before giving it up to become Council chair the same day.

Last week, in the Ward 4 race, GLAA gave Democratic Party activist and businessman Michael Brown a +8 rating compared to a +2.5 rating for Ward 4 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Muriel Bowser, whom Fenty endorsed.

In the Ward 7 race, GLAA gave civic activists Johnnie Scott Rice and Emily Washington each a +7 rating compared to a +1.5 rating for local Democratic Party activist Yvette Alexander, who has been endorsed by Gray. Fenty has not made an endorsement in the Ward 7 race.

GLAA issues its ratings on a scale of –10 to its highest possible score of +10 based on candidates’ answers to a detailed questionnaire and their record on gay- and AIDS-related issues.

In a statement, GLAA said the +8 rating for Brown, son of the late Clinton administration cabinet member and Democratic National Committee Chair Ronald Brown, was in recognition of his “outstanding responses to GLAA’s candidate questionnaire and a solid record of support for the District’s GLBT community.”

Brown and Muriel Bowser, both Democrats, are among 19 candidates running for the Ward 4 seat. Rice, an independent and former Republican, and Washington and Alexander, both Democrats, are among 18 candidates running for the Ward 7 seat.

In a development that political observers say could confuse voters, both gay and straight, a candidate named Renee Bowser is also running in the Ward 4 race under the Statehood-Green Party label. Renee Bowser, who is not related to Muriel Bowser, also received a +2.5 rating from GLAA.

The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest gay political group, is scheduled to vote on endorsements in the Ward 4 and 7 races at its regular monthly meeting on April 9. The club is also scheduled to vote at the meeting on an endorsement for one of eight candidates running for a vacant seat on the city’s school board. Many of the candidates are expected to address the club at the meeting.

‘100 percent supportive’

Political observers initially expected the two Council races to turn into a free for all with such a large number of candidates in the mix. But Fenty and Gray have tapped into the pool of donors who gave money to their own successful election campaigns last year to help raise money for Bowser and Alexander, providing the two with a huge financial advantage over most of their opponents.

Only Brown, who has ties to Democratic Party contributors from across the country, is considered competitive with the Fenty fundraising “machine” that Fenty has unleashed on Bowser’s behalf, city hall observers have said.

Brown was among Fenty’s challengers in the mayoral primary last September before he dropped out of the race and endorsed former Council Chair Linda Cropp (D-At-Large), Fenty’s main rival. Fenty trounced Cropp and three other opponents by lopsided margins in the primary and easily won the general election in November against token rivals from the Republican and Statehood-Green parties.

A number of gay political activists who backed Brown in the mayoral race are now backing him in the Council contest in what some are viewing as a rerun of the rivalries between gay Brown and gay Fenty backers in last year’s mayoral race.

Gay supporters of Bowser and Alexander say those two candidates also are strong supporters of gay rights. They attribute their lower GLAA ratings to the two candidates’ mostly brief responses to questions on the questionnaire. Their gay backers note that they each agreed with virtually all issues and positions deemed important by GLAA but did not provide more substantive details that the gay activist group requires for a higher score.

“She is 100 percent supportive on all the issues the GLBT community cares about,” said Peter Rosenstein, a gay Democratic activist and Fenty adviser, in describing Muriel Bowser’s positions. “With GLAA, it’s a matter of how you fill out the form.”

GLAA officials have defended their rating system, saying substantive, detailed answers demonstrate an understanding of the complex issues facing the gay community and are predictive of how a candidate will handle such issues if elected to public office.

Gay activist Sterling Washington, a Brown supporter, said Brown’s +8 rating was not an accident. According to Washington and Phil Pannell, a veteran gay activist and Brown supporter, Brown has worked closely with gay community leaders in D.C. for many years. The two note that Brown has served on the board of the Whitman-Walker Clinic and emerged as an advocate for a gay speaker at the Millions More civil rights march for blacks three years ago.

Rosenstein said Muriel Bowser shares Fenty’s strong support on gay- and AIDS-related issues, prompting many gays who backed Fenty for mayor to support Bowser. Among them are gay Democratic activists Sheila Alexander Reed, Clark Ray, Joe Martin and Steve Gorman.

A number of prominent gay supporters of Cropp for mayor are backing Brown, including former Stein Club presidents Kurt Vondran and David Meadows and former Whitman-Walker Clinic director Cornelius Baker.

Among the 19 candidates running in the Ward 4 race, only eight completed and returned the GLAA questionnaire. In the Ward 7 race, seven of the 18 candidates running returned the questionnaire. All but two of the non-responders received “0” ratings based on a GLAA practice of assigning a 0 to candidates whose positions and records on gay issues cannot be determined.

Among the Council candidates receiving 0 ratings are former city school board members Iris Toyer and Dwight Singleton.

Rick Rosendall, GLAA’s vice president, has said ratings in the low “positive” range on the group’s rating scale indicate a candidate’s general support on most gay-related issues and are viewed as satisfactory to good scores. He noted that none of the candidates who returned a questionnaire received a “negative” score, a development he called encouraging.

Support for gay marriage

Among the 15 candidates running in both wards, who returned their questionnaires, all but two expressed support for legalizing same-sex marriage in D.C. Democrat Cleve Mesidor, who is running in the Ward 7 race, is the only candidate who expressed opposition to same-sex marriage.

Alexander, the Ward 7 candidate endorsed by Gray, did not provide a direct answer to the marriage question, which asked candidates, “Do you support legal recognition of marriages between partners of the same sex?”

“I support legal recognition of unions between partners of the same sex,” Alexander stated in her response.

Similar to Brown and Muriel Bowser, Alexander stated in her responses that she supports expanding the city’s domestic partners law to include all the rights and benefits of marriage.

Pannell, who is supporting Alexander, said she has been a longtime ally of the gay community during her tenure as a member of the city’s Democratic State Committee and worked with Pannell to persuade the committee to create two seats reserved for Stein Club members.

In the school board contest, five of the eight candidates returned the GLAA questionnaire. Among those returning the questionnaire, each said they support the right of students to form gay-straight alliance clubs at city high schools and four said students should be allowed to bring same-sex dates to school social functions such as dances.

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